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" I think that computers today allow us one last opportunity to provide something like a level playingfield in America."
- William Gibson
 |
| Pay Per View TV | ||
| The broadcast of games and matches to private televisions for a fee. |
As far as I know, the first suggestion of this idea, although Keller did not use this phrase for it.
| "...they started to broadcast other features, like parades, prizefights and tennis matches. Their charges were low, and they counted on the volume of business to bring returns. For example, this afternoon’s football game cost each person who had one of the television screens one dollar for the privilege. Of course, as many persons as could crowd in a room could see it for that dollar. Out of that dollar, thirty cents goes to each of the teams and the remaining forty cents to the company. “The effect on the theater was at once seen, but no one realized just what this invention would do for sports. It seemed that everybody arrived at the same decision at the same time: namely, that it was easier to stay at home and see a prizefight or a tennis game for a dollar than it was to fight the crowds and pay anywhere from five to fifty dollars for poor accommodations. The attendance at all the sports fell off in an astonishing manner, and the various promoters would have been bankrupt had it not been for the generosity of the television companies. They could afford to do the square thing, because, while the actual attendance at the games fell off, the interest in the sports increased, and, finally, instead of seventy thousand people seeing a prize-fight, it was estimated that as many as fifty million people all over the country would stop everything and see and hear the fight in their own homes at the same time and at the small cost of a dollar a home |
| Technovelgy from The Threat of the Robot,
by David H. Keller. Published by Science Wonder Stories in 1929 Additional resources -
|
This service was also provided free of charge to hotel guests:
Ball called his waiter to the table. Pointing to the paper, he asked what W2RX meant.
“That is the television broadcasting station code number, sir,” was the polite reply. “But you need not worry about that so long as you are a guest at this hotel. The management is glad to furnish this service free to its guests. At three o'clock this afternoon just go to your room, sir, and tune in, and if you are not an expert, just call for one of the bell-boys, and he will be glad to get W2RX for you.
“And what will happen when he does get W2RX
for me?”
“Then you will see the game. I understand that it is a very good game, though I do not care much for sports myself.”
Ed Ball gazed at the waiter in astonishment. “You don’t mean that I can see the game from the hotel?” he asked.
“Certainly. That is the way almost everyone does nowadays. I understand that the spectators used to go out to the field, sir, but that was before my time.”
"...Be sure to tune in on W2RX. One dollar is all it will cost to entertain the entire family.”
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Threat of the Robot
More Ideas
and Technology by David H. Keller
Tech news articles related to The Threat of the Robot
Tech news articles related to works by David H. Keller
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'...war-balloons, or, as it would be more correct to call them, navigable aerostats.'
'This robot is a creature... It is a manlike being. Therefore, like any other talking, thinking man, he is entitled to a court trial!'
'...small electric motors at the principal joints worked the prosthetic framework by means of steel cables...'
